Scott Esdaile

There’s a saying that it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in a certain field. Which equates to playing a lot of notes on an instrument, hitting a lot of balls on a tennis court, or many hours immersing yourself in a second language. And you have to be dedicated. There’s no point slacking off when the going gets tough around the 3,000 hour mark.

But given the hours you’ve invested in mastering these new abilities, wouldn’t you hate it if they then became redundant. With newer technologies the main protagonist. So today, I’d like to pay tribute to the skills no longer needed to pay the bills. While they may not have required years of commitment to master, we should pause and reflect on the fallen.

Here are some of my favourite superseded skills:

• Winding the cassette tape back into shape with a biro.
• For that matter, even making a mix tape. With bonus points awarded for correctly pre-emptively hitting the record button to avoid chopping the start of the song. And bonus-bonus points for timing your mix to fit exactly on a single side.
• Sending a fax. Actually, who am I kidding – I never mastered that. Do I need to dial zero first? Do I need to put in the area code? Bah… too hard.
• Blowing the top of the Nintendo game cartridge to make it load properly. This skill was a mandatory in the lounge room for many years.
• Locking the front passenger car door by pushing the button down AND pushing it shut while holding the handle up. Kids these days don’t even know…
• Art Directors – how are your Letraset skills these days?
• And finally, signatures. I’ve almost forgotten what mine looks like. A skill that is literally, no longer required to pay the bills.

What about you? Any redundant skills you’d like to pay tribute to? Feel free to add yours in the comments.

{First published on BCM’s Two Cents blog}